Foundry Talks: Bill Cain & Anna Ziegler
OPC Foundry Project playwrights and plays (top, L to R): Anna Ziegler Antigones”| Bill Cain “The Patriots”| Gideon Jeph Wabvuta “One More Sunday”| Samuel D. Hunter “A Case for the Existence of God| Jon Robin Baitz “I’ll Be Seein’ Ya”| Liza Powel O’Brien “Apostrophe”| Luis Alfaro ”My Father’s House” | Franky D. Gonzalez “Even Flowers Bloom in Hell, Sometimes
FOUNDRY PROGRAM CONTINUES MISSION TO DEVELOP NEW PLAYS AND VISIONARY VOICES
We continue to make significant progress in the Foundry Project, OPC's inaugural online play development program. For OPC artists the Foundry Project has been an invaluable lifeline for creativity and connectivity during these turbulent times.
As we near the end of the 3 1/2 month Foundry journey, our eight passionately engaged playwrights are preparing for final workshop readings of their new plays. Although we all have greatly missed the experience of being in Ojai for two weeks this summer, we have discovered a new way to work together to achieve our core mission: developing new plays and visionary voices.
Please enjoy the third installment of The Foundry Talks series, featuring interviews with Bill Cain and Anna Ziegler.
BILL CAIN
THE PATRIOTS
Bill is the author of Equivocation (Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Arena Stage, Geffen Playhouse, Manhattan Theatre Club); 9 Circles (Marin Theatre, Bootleg, Sheen Center); How to Write a New Book for the Bible (Berkeley Rep, Seattle Rep, South Coast Rep). Stand-Up Tragedy (Mark Taper Forum, Arena Stage, Hartford Stage and ultimately Broadway). Bill received the 2009 and 2010 Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award. He has spent eight summers at the Ojai Playwrights Conference developing his plays.
In THE PATRIOTS, Bill asks: What in the world can a white man write about during today’s explosive expansion of consciousness on race? Well, he can at least write about another white man. In this case, Francis Scott Key and, trust me, you have no idea! The willful obfuscation of the circumstances behind our national anthem is a masterpiece of forgetting. Yes, let’s tear down the statue of the author of the words, and get to the roots of what makes the singing of that anthem – dangerous. A time-travelling exploration of the first race riot in America (inspired by Francis Scott Key) merged with Super Bowls where taking a knee became a symbol of standing up for freedom.
WATCH INTERVIEW
ANNA ZIEGLER
ANTIGONES
Anna’s plays include the widely produced Photograph 51 (London’s West End, directed by Michael Grandage, starring Nicole Kidman; upcoming at Williamstown Theatre Festival, on Audible; and named the number one play of 2019 by the Chicago Tribune), The Last Match (Roundabout, Old Globe), The Wanderers (Old Globe and upcoming at Roundabout), and Actually (Geffen Playhouse, Williamstown, Manhattan Theatre Club, Ovation Award winner for Playwriting). Anna Ziegler: Plays One is published by Oberon.
In ANTIGONES, women’s bodies and the body politic collide in a compelling reimagining of the classic play by Sophocles. Here Antigone is a woman haunted by her own history, which is also the history of all women. Here a mysterious Chorus tells a story from our future that might as well be from our past. How can we possibly fix the world if we don’t even own our own bodies? An Antigone for the #MeToo moment, this lyrical, political retelling asks us to consider, “What will it take for anything to really change?”